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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Bacon Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwich

This might have beenwas a bit over the top, but I couldn't resist the temptation. Blame it on the snowstorm, Seattlites do get a little crazy when it snows. Six inches of snow followed by an ice storm meant I didn't drive anywhere for the better part of a week. I hung out in the kitchen and cooked up kettles of soup, pots of chili, even beef stroganoff for goodness sakes. Then cookie madness struck, along with a craving for bacon.

Lightly sprinkle a little brown sugar and cayenne on bacon and it cooks up to crispy wonderfulness, so why not add a little crispy bacon to a cookie? Bacon adds a special sweet, saltysomethingto most things savory, but I'd never used it in a dessert. (Note to self: there could be a good reason for that!)

A Google search for bacon cookie recipes produced over 20 million hits; obviously this was not a new idea. I went with a recipe from SeriousEats, skimming it quickly to be sure all of the ingredients were on hand. I should have read it more thoughtfully, realizing that a pound of bacon, 4 cups of flour, 3 cups of chocolate chips, 3 cups of sugar and a cup and a half of butter would make a huge quantity of cookies.

Hilary and I measured, mixed, shaped and baked batch after batch of these cookies - a hefty five dozen in all. We sampled warm cookies, cooled cookies and finally cookie ice-cream sandwiches. Meh. This recipe didn't overwhelm us with goodness, or even bacon flavor. The cookies were just okay, overly-sweet chocolate chip cookies.

I'll stick to my usual, more traditional chocolate chip recipes in the future. But if you care to check out the SeriousEats recipe, perhaps tweak it to suit your taste, use this link. If you're in the neighborhood, now that the snow has melted, c'mon by for coffee and cookies. I have dozens to share.